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Florida Cop Threatens to Rape, Kill Woman’s Family for not Sending him Nudes: What Virginia Tech learned about how and why we crash our motorcycles: New details emerge about CHP, motorcycle collision caught on video in Rancho Cucamonga

What do you learn if you pick 100 riders, put five video cameras and data-logging equipment on their motorcycles and record them for a total of 366,667 miles?

Several things, some of which we knew, some surprising. Intersections are dangerous. We either need to pay better attention or work on our braking techniques, because we crash into the back of other vehicles way too often. We’re not good enough at cornering, especially right turns. And we drop our bikes a lot (probably more often than any of us imagined or were willing to admit).

The study was done for the Motorcycle Safety Foundation by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. Of course there’s a lot more to it than those findings above, and I’ll get further into the results in a minute. But first, why do we need some men and women in lab coats to tell us why we crashed?

Motorcycle crashes: Complex topic, scarce information

The most commonly cited U.S. study of motorcycle crashes is the one known as the Hurt report. Researchers at the University of Southern California, led by Harry Hurt, went to motorcycle crash scenes to determine the causes. Unfortunately, that report came out in 1981, when cell phones were non-existent and a powerful motorcycle made 90 horsepower. Plus, all those crashes studied were in Southern California.

So even though the Hurt report was the best we had, it was short of perfect. Why does that matter? Well, if we don’t have hard evidence on why crashes happen, how can we make the right decisions to prevent them to keep ourselves safer? Or fight bad legislation intended to protect us from ourselves? Or provide better training for new riders?

How Virginia Tech studied motorcycle crashes

The VTTI researchers recruited 100 riders from age 21 to 79 in California, Arizona, Florida and Virginia. They outfitted their motorcycles with video cameras showing the rider’s face and forward, rear, left and right views. GPS and data loggers captured other information, such as brake pressure, acceleration, etc.

This high-tech approach addressed another weakness of the Hurt report. As thorough as the USC team was back in the late 1970s, they had to gather information from crash scene clues and witnesses, including the riders themselves, when possible. In many cases, they found no evidence that riders took any action at all to avoid a crash, though riders often reported they did. The VTTI cameras and data loggers weren’t likely to change their story after the fact.

While 366,667 miles of riding sounds like a lot, this study still falls short of fulfilling the hopes we had a decade ago of a comprehensive national study. The telling statistic is that in the entire study there were 30 crashes and 122 near-crash events. There are far more than 30 ways to crash a motorcycle, so drawing conclusions from that sample size is tricky. The inclusion of near-crashes helps, however. Sometimes those events teach us just as much or more than a crash.

The VTTI team explains its methodology, including efforts to standardize and define terms and procedures. All the details are in a 20-page report you can download from the MSF. But here are some of the things I picked out.

Where we crash

Intersections. No surprise there. VTTI created a system to calculate how much a certain scenario or riding behavior increased the odds of a crash or near-crash. An uncontrolled intersection presents nearly 41 times the risk of no intersection. A parking lot or driveway intersection is more than eight times as risky and an intersection with a signal is almost three times as risky.

A downhill grade increased the risk by a factor of four while an uphill grade doubled it. Riders were nine times as likely to crash or have a near-crash incident on gravel or dirt roads than on paved roads. And riders were twice as likely to have an incident in a righthand turn than on a straight section of road (crossing the center line is considered a near-crash scenario, even if nothing else bad happens).

How we crash

We complain all the time about other people on the road trying to kill us, especially cars pulling into our paths. The VTTI study partially backs that up. Of the 99 crashes and near-crashes involving another vehicle, the three categories of other vehicles crossing the rider’s path add up to 19.

Here’s the surprise, however. What’s the most common scenario? Riders hitting (or nearly hitting) another vehicle from behind. There were 35 of those incidents. Are we really almost twice as likely to plow into a stopped car in front of us as to have someone pull into our path? Or should we write this off as the result of a small sample size?

Maybe there are clues in the risk section. Researchers tried to break down rider behavior in crashes and near-crash incidents into two categories: aggressive riding or rider inattention or lack of skills. The cameras and other data helped determine, for example, if the rider ran the red light because of inattention or aggressive riding.

The study found that aggressive riding increased risk by a factor of 18 while inattention or lack of skill increased it by a factor of nine. Combine the two, and odds of an incident increased by 30.

Now here’s one of the less dramatic findings, but an interesting one, just the same. It seems we drop our bikes a lot. Or at least the riders in the study did. More than half the crashes were incidents some riders wouldn’t define as a crash — not a dramatic collision but an incident defined as a case where the “vehicle falls coincident with low or no speed (even if in gear)” not caused by another outside factor. Rider inattention or poor execution are to blame. The study finds “These low-speed ‘crashes’ appear to be relatively typical among everyday riding,” but they are incidents that would never be included in a different kind of study of motorcycle crashes. The cameras, however, capture it all, even our mundane but embarrassing moments.

What we can learn

Of course the practical goal for the MSF in funding this study is to find ways to improve its curriculum for teaching new riders and the study ends with some suggestions. For all of us, however, anything that gets us thinking about where we can be better (and therefore safer) riders is worth a little of our time and thought.

Here’s one thing I know I personally need to work on constantly, and I suspect many of you do, too. We need to look further ahead. It applies on the street, on the track, everywhere. One of the other risk factors the VTTI researchers found that I haven’t mentioned yet is that maneuvering to avoid an object, whether a pedestrian, an animal or something lying in the road, increases the risk factor by 12. Combine that with the high number of riders hitting another vehicle from behind and I get the feeling we’re just not paying close enough attention. We’re not keeping our eyes up and looking far down the road, to see the developing situation that is going to cause the driver in front of us to slam on his brakes, or to spot the hunk of exploded truck tire lying in our lane. Those things are taking us by surprise and we’re not giving ourselves enough time to react.

One thing professional riding coaches teach at the track is to keep your eyes up and look farther ahead. That essentially slows down the action, because you have more time to react to what you see if you’re looking further ahead. If you’re looking at what’s right in front of you on the track (or street), you’re looking at the past, not the future. It’s already too late for you to do anything about what’s 20 feet ahead of your front tire.

The VTTI study isn’t the last word on motorcycle crashes, but that’s OK. There should never be a last word, because we should never stop talking and learning about it.

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The California Highway Patrol released more information on the collision between a CHP officer and motorcycle rider that was caught on camera in Rancho Cucamonga.

A group of motorcycle riders headed out from a restaurant in the City of Industry to a fundraiser in Rancho Cucamonga on Sunday. As they were traveling on the eastbound 210 Freeway, passengers began taking videos of the ride.

During that time, the CHP said one of the motorcyclists tried to pass a car on the right shoulder as it was trying to enter the freeway near Mountain Avenue.

In a video captured by a passenger, the CHP officer turned on his lights and siren in an attempt to pull over the biker. The rider, who was identified as 26-year-old Raul Garcia, slowed down during that attempt, moved around the vehicle and sped off.

As the group exited the freeway, another passenger was on Facebook Live when the CHP officer and motorcyclist zoomed by at an intersection. In that video, it appeared the CHP officer collided with Garcia’s motorcycle, sending him crashing to the ground.

The bikers became angry after witnessing the crash and confronted the officer as he was trying to take Garcia into custody. A collision report indicated that Garcia suffered bruising to his left leg, shoulder and lower back as a result of the crash.

Backed by Trump, Republican John Cox is a force in California governor race

Republican businessman John Cox is shaking up the gubernatorial contest in liberal California, as he enjoys a strong position in the polls and the full-throated endorsement of President Trump ahead of next week’s primary.

“California has a rare opportunity to turn things around and solve its high crime, high tax, problems — along with so many others,” Trump tweeted on Memorial Day, 10 days after first endorsing Cox. “On June 5th, vote for GOP Gubernatorial Candidate JOHN COX, a really good and highly competent man. He’ll Make California Great Again!”

Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom is still the clear front-runner in the race. But Cox could advance to the general election if he secures a second-place finish next Tuesday — thanks to the state’s unique “jungle primary” system that advances the top two finishers regardless of party.

Even a spot on the November ballot would mark a win for Republicans in the increasingly liberal state, where Democrats have controlled the legislature roughly 90 percent of the time and have held both U.S. Senate seats since 1992.

However, winning the governorship isn’t unthinkable, considering four of the last seven governors have been Republicans dating back to Ronald Reagan in 1967.

An Emerson College poll released Monday shows front-running Democrat Newsom leading with support from 24 percent of likely voters, followed by Cox at 16 percent and Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa at 12. It followed another poll also showing Cox in the second-place spot in the race to replace outgoing Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown.

Villaraigosa, the Los Angeles mayor, is now at risk of being shut out of the general election if Cox’s support holds. He is considered more moderate than Newsom, a former San Francisco mayor, and remains widely popular among likely Hispanic voters.

But in a political twist, Newsom is launching ads against Cox — which could have the effect of boosting the Republican’s candidacy next week.

One Newsom video calls Cox a Trump “protégé” who spews “the same hateful rhetoric.” While his ads attack the GOP candidate, Newsom could be helping him with Republican voters by underscoring his ties to the president — as he would presumably prefer to face the Republican, and not Villaraigosa, in November.

Cox’s closest Republican competition is state legislator Travis Allen, who finished fourth in the Emerson poll, at 11 percent.

The Huntington Beach-area lawmaker has also tried to align himself with the Trump agenda and this weekend appeared to bristle at Cox being endorsed by the president.

“Cox is a Never Trumper,” Allen tweeted Monday. “I think @realDonaldTrump was misled by the establishment in Washington, DC. I fully expect my phone to be ringing on June 6, and I expect Trump to say ‘We made a mistake but now we’re fully on board, LET’S GO TAKE BACK CALIFORNIA’ ”

The 62-year-old Cox, a successful Southern California businessman, is running on a pro-Trump agenda, with a top priority of ending the state’s “sanctuary” status and those of cities and counties that protect illegal immigrants from deportation.

“Politicians like Gavin Newsom thrive on the politics of division, supporting so-called sanctuary cities just to win votes,” Cox says in a campaign ad. “Let’s end sanctuary cities now.”

Cox aligns with Trump — whose administration in March sued California over sanctuary laws — in arguing that limiting local law enforcement officials from helping federal immigration agents has resulted in more crime.

Cox’s other top priorities include protecting Second Amendment rights and cutting taxpayer waste, including the state’s proposed high-speed rail, which he and other critics call a “boondoggle” and “the train to nowhere.” A recent analysis shows the cost now at $77 billion, up 20 percent from roughly two years ago. He also opposes a new gas tax hike.

“The top two issues are the state sanctuary state law … because it protects criminal illegal aliens … and the new gas tax,” Cox said last week on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier.”

“It’s crushing workers in the state,” Cox also told Fox News.

Trump and other Republicans, at least until November, would surely be elated with Cox finishing second behind Newsom, because they desperately need a GOP candidate at the top of the state ballot this fall to bring out Republican voters. The situation is especially pressing in California congressional races, where Democrats are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into bids to swipe seven GOP-held House seats. Higher GOP turnout could help Republicans hold at least some of them.Cox, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other California Republicans also are trying to get a gas tax repeal initiative on the November ballot, in another attempt to get GOP voters to the polls.

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One month after becoming a Florida cop, Joshua Fancher began terrorizing a woman in Georgia through anonymous threats

A Florida cop apparently thought he could get away with terrorizing a woman online by threatening to rape and kill her family if she did not send him nude photos of herself as long as he remained anonymous.

He was wrong.

Orange City police officer Joshua David Fancher was arrested Tuesday and charged with making terrorist threats. The 25-year-old resigned immediately.

He had only been a cop since December 21, believing the badge turned him into a “peacemaker,” who was blessed by God, according to his Facebook profile photo.

But peacemaker is one of those doublespeak words cops like to use that means the exact opposite.

He began terrorizing the woman on January 27 by sending her threatening messages through her Instagram account, threatening to kill her and her 5-year-old brother and kill her sister if she did not send him nude photos of herself, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

It is not clear how he chose to target her, but she lives in Georgia and does not appear to know him.

The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, who made the arrest, posted the following statement on its Facebook page:

Since Fancher resigned, there is always that chance that he becomes a cop again.

But for now, he must fight the felony charge against him. He remains in jail with no bond.

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